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Using song to help children remember modal auxiliaries

I understand that it is hard to get young children to memorise the 9 modal auxiliaries. I created a simple song a few years ago to help my pupils to remember them. It worked well as my pupils enjoyed singing it. I have just uploaded and recorded with a simple videoclip with my voice and lyrics but no background music.

I think it may be useful and best of all since I created it so it is free. I uploaded the videoclip to youtube.

Re: Using song to help children remember modal auxiliaries

Do-did-does- how are these modals? Isn't including them with the modals possibly going to confuse things a bit? I am not sure how you are defining special words, but there are modals and an incomplete list of auxiliaries there.

Re: Using song to help children remember modal auxiliaries

Thanks for the comment. I am aware that Did, Do and Does are not modal auxiliaries.
Basically, it helps to make the song more fun and interesting like a little chant or rap.

Did, Do and Does do have identical grammar features where simple base form of a verb needs to follow after them. My purpose is to allow children to know that simple base form is necessary by being more aware of these words.

I have already tried this song with pupils and they are able to remember them very quickly. There is also a need for follow-up to highlight features.

I guess learning the specific names and terms of grammar rules can be quite hard for pupils who are weak in English. It makes the song more fun to learn for young children by calling it 'special word song'. They want to learn it as they think it is special.

I personally believe that learning the features and functions of grammar rules is more important than the specific terms of them. Being able to write and phrase sentences with correct grammar rules is important.

This song is created to help pupils remember these commonly used modals quickly and song is a powerful tool to help them to store in their permanent memory. After that, there is a need to have examples.

I hope this gives an insight of the purpose of this song.

Please use it if you find it is useful. Put it aside if you don't find it is suitable for your pupils.

Re: Using song to help children remember modal auxiliaries

As a teacher from Asia, my focus is to ensure my pupils know the features and functions of certain words. The correct terms of grammar rules may not be the key focus as they are not really going to be tested for their terms.

Getting the structure of sentences correctly is more important like 'Subject-Verb Agreement.